17 December 2017

Salome non sine mentula

It just plopped through my door earlier in the year ... a leaflet inviting me to see a production of Oscar Wilde's Salome by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I am reminded of it as we reach this 3rd Sunday of Advent, on which Holy Mother Church sets S John Baptist before our eyes.

"Portrayed by Matthew Tennyson wearing a dress and high heels, the 'Salome' ... is not depicted as male or female ... we can't shoehorn everyone into being either a 'he' or a 'she' ..."

Poor dear Oscar, what a wonderful, counter-cultural, time of it he had. What an amusing era that was, when you could use homosexuality to set yourself up as a wit and to provoke and disquiet the grim, stuffy, pompous old bores of cultural conformity.

And I wonder what poor dear Oscar would have made of our era, in which we are required to preach the normality of sodomy and to inculcate the bizarre rubbish of fluid gender among the young. It's a tough time now for the counter-cultural, isn't it? A time in which the rules are rigidly enforced and carefully policed by the grim, stuffy, pompous old bores of cultural conformity. I wonder if Oscar might have banged on the gates and sought readmission to Reading Gaol.

Ah well. I expect the RSC is glad to get an occasional break from endless performances of Transqueen Lear.

7 comments:

'Twas ever thus. Yesterday's bold radicals become today's enforcers of the new orthodoxy and then tomorrow's betrayers of the revolution. And all without needing to change their own position one iota. Vide Tatchell, Greer et hoc genus omne; likewise, in other contexts, Danton, Bukharin, etc. etc.

And as for Saint Oscar, he'd probably have had his collar felt by Inspector Plod from Operation Yewtree.

"Ah! Happy they whose hearts can break And peace of pardon win! How else may man make straight his plan And cleanse his soul from Sin? How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in?" Oscar Wilde "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"

The author died in Paris on 30 November 1900, having been received into the Catholic Faith on his deathbed that very day.

Poor Wilde was a talented author who fell into sin, and repented of it. Through God's grace, and after many trials, he sought redemption the Church. Those are the really essential facts of the case. How he could be used as a hero of the Gay lifestyle is beyond me.

But I though the whole point of the play is that Salome is a young, nubile, certified double-X-chromosomed heterosexual nymph. An androgynous Salome seems to make as much sense as an androgynous Carmen, or an androgynous Cleopatra, or a Juliet. Heck, even Rose in Titanic needs to be unambiguously female…

Maybe, in fairness, I need to see the production to “get” it.

I think Matthew's dance of the seven veils is going to be a let down for some...

Fr John Hunwicke

was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Since 2011, he has been in full communion with the See of S Peter. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. In this blog, the letters PF stand for Pope Francis.